Sad state of the nation

Our presidential election was held almost a year ago and it is quite clear that PRRD won it handily by a wide margin over his nearest rival. But it seems that up to now some of his followers and diehard supporters are still very much concerned and worried about his popularity and acceptance by a great majority of Filipinos. Whenever other people disagree with Duterte’s actions or point out the errors or mistakes in his statements, they hurl insults and personal attacks against these people. They do not squarely answer the points raised or show that there is nothing wrong in what Duterte has said or done.

Recently, they even held a rally at the Luneta supposedly for the purpose of changing Vice President Leni Robredo who denounced the ongoing extra judicial killings happening in our country in a video-taped message aired before the United Nations General Assembly. They would like the Vice President to resign for “shaming Duterte” at said international forum.

Trying to ask Robredo to step down and to show that Duterte still has a lot of supporters by holding such rally is just a waste of time, effort and money. Reports say that the people who went to the Luneta were paid and transported in luxury vehicles. But it would appear that they failed to draw a large crowd as only about four to five thousand assembled there although photos in social media posted by the PRRD trolls showed a huge gathering.

Whatever may be the size of the crowd, said rally is useless and unnecessary. In the first place, Robredo was just exercising her right to free speech guaranteed by our Constitution. In the second place, changing a Vice President cannot be done by rallying against her, no matter how big the crowd is. Under our Charter, the Vice President can only be changed by the process of impeachment for grounds specified therein. In fact, Duterte supporters have also filed an Impeachment complaint for denouncing the EJKs which is allegedly a “betrayal of public trust.” Actually however no “public trust” has been betrayed here because such betrayal refers to any form of violation of the oath of office. And shaming Duterte is clearly not a betrayal of public trust but a betrayal of his diehard followers who gathered at the Luneta.

What is clear at this time is that our country continues to be sharply divided because of the continuing angry and belligerent reaction of Duterte’s trolls and even of Duterte himself who continues to appear almost daily in several gatherings delivering speeches laced with curses, invectives and ambiguities. People who voted for Duterte are thus starting to get disappointed and feel that they committed a mistake in voting for him as shown by his latest trust and approval ratings which dived by six percentage points.

Hopefully and while there is still enough time, Duterte should change his style of governance. He should start reducing his almost daily speeches going around the country as if he is still in a campaign mode. While it may be good for him to go to different places and find out the actual situations all over the country, it would be much better if he do this without delivering long winded, unprepared talks with angry off-the-cuff remarks which even show that he is guilty of violating and disregarding our laws aside from his low moral standards.

Among his recent acts which are virtually supporting lawlessness is his decision to grant the members of Kadamay a leftist organization the houses which they forcibly seized and occupied. In effect Duterte is sanctioning the illegal action of this group who took over and claimed houses belonging to the government and reserved for government employees particularly soldiers and policemen. He may be helping the poor but he is doing it illegally. Such action may lead to anarchy and chaos.

Then there is also his public admission that the nine cops now charged with murder for the killing of Albuera Mayor Espinosa, a suspected drug lord, inside his jail cell, were only following his orders. Thus he even promised to pardon them once found guilty and to even promote them. People cannot help but be shocked at this very incriminating statement. He is actually admitting that he is the mastermind behind the murder of a drug lord. In fact he even followed up this shocking admission with another statement that he himself will shoot to kill these drug lords. These public admissions somehow confirm the admissions of Davao policemen Lascanas and Matobato that when he was Mayor of Davao, Duterte organized a Davao Death Squad (DDS) which liquidated numerous drug lords.

PRRD has also recently revealed how low his moral values are. He vigorously defended his long time political ally, and now Speaker of the Lower House Pantaleon Alvarez who boasted that he had adulterous relations with other women and begot six children. He agrees with Alvarez when the latter unabashedly claimed that all men have illicit relations with other women: “Sino ba’ng wala kaligayahan.” Such statement shows the gutter morality of our present leaders. It also proves their ignorance or disregard for our Revised Penal Code which punishes “Any husband who shall keep a mistress in the conjugal dwelling, or, shall have sexual intercourse, under scandalous circumstances, with a woman who is not his wife, or shall cohabit with her in any other place”. This is a law applicable to all Filipinos regardless of his religion which our own President and Speaker of the House openly and willfully violate.

In the midst of these unfortunate developments, we cannot help but asked once more: “What is happening to our country?” Is there still hope that we will have leaders who will serve as models and inspirations especially to our youth?

*      *      *

Email: [email protected]